


ugly and stupid and never good enough

by Aubrelin



Category: SHINee
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, Jinki is worried, Mental Illness, Self-Hatred, Taemin won't talk, Vomiting, this takes place during Sherlock era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26062936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aubrelin/pseuds/Aubrelin
Summary: "Why did you do it?" Jinki asked again. "Why did you make yourself sick."Taemin didn't say anything, but he didn't shrug either. Instead the beginnings of a frustrated frown began to etch themselves into his brow. He didn't try to simply cast the question aside like he'd been doing before, but he wasn't able to answer it either. That was alright, because Jinki couldn't expect him to go from not talking at all to telling Jinki everything from one moment to the next. They might not even get all too far today, but Jinki wanted to make sure that however far they did get was based on truths and trying.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	ugly and stupid and never good enough

**Author's Note:**

> This story revolves around a character struggling with an eating disorder, so please read this at your own discretion!

He hadn't been the only one to notice. He couldn't have been. It was so very clear that something was happening and that it wasn't good. Jinki couldn't imagine he was the only one to have noticed. The five of them lived together — in a not very spacious dorm — and they spent pretty much every waking hour together, and they had done for the past few years of their lives. There was no way that they hadn't all noticed it by now, and yet whenever he tried to ask about it, Taemin simply refused to admit to anything. He was so frustratingly  _ good _ at it that Jinki, especially in the beginning, had been fooled by it. Whenever Taemin looked slightly confused at the confrontation and then began to laugh, a little shyly, before apologising for the worry he'd caused, while very seriously stating he was fine, just a little tired, or a little stressed, Jinki had believed him at first.

But not any longer.

"Taemin, I need to talk to you," he said, when Taemin was about to head upstairs to his room, only just having come home from school. There'd been no time before, but there was plenty of time now, and Jinki wouldn't give Taemin another chance to slip away to his bedroom and avoid the truth once more. Enough was quite enough.

"Huh?" Taemin asked, looking a little worried, and a little guilty all at once. Jinki was pretty sure the latter would fade the moment he continued his enquiry and Taemin would realise what this was about. Then Taemin would do anything not to look guilty and get Jinki off his case. It just wouldn’t work.

"I heard you this afternoon," he said. They'd been at the company for some celebratory — and totally obligatory — lunch, after their latest successes. Taemin hadn't wanted to go, but Jinki had told him it would be rude not to. Besides, he could miss some hours of school, which had finally managed to convince Taemin to come along, even if he hadn't seemed to be enjoying himself particularly much.

"What?" Taemin asked, the guilt fading from his features exactly as Jinki had expected it would. And then it was replaced with something like humour, like he was expecting whatever Jinki would say next to be some kind of joke. Or at least, he was preparing to treat it like one.

"You threw up," Jinki said. It didn't matter that the two of them were still in the hallway and that Jinki had wanted to sit down for this. If he would give Taemin enough time and space to think about this, he would find a way to worm out of it. So he was done giving Taemin the opportunity to come up with lies and excuses, to practice his look of confusion, which today lacked severely and didn't look the slightest convincing. Jinki raised his eyebrows a little, feeling — for the first time — like he'd actually caught Taemin with something the boy wouldn't simply shrug off.

"Oh?" Taemin asked, which was as much of a confirmation as Jinki had needed. Denying he'd puked, saying it must've been someone else, laughing it off, all of that might've worked, but this 'oh' was a level of hurt and confused that Taemin couldn't easily shrug off if he’d suddenly revisit it to change his response.

"You threw up," Jinki said again. It wasn't a question. Not at all. "First you said you weren't hungry, that you'd had breakfast, which I know you haven't had, and then you threw up after you'd had to eat."

"It was really filling," Taemin said, his eyes were darting everywhere in order not to look at Jinki. "I didn't like it."

"Since when don't you like chocolate cake?" Jinki asked. "Taemin, if you'd suddenly felt sick, then why didn't you tell any of your hyungs? We would’ve helped you."

"I don't... I don't know..." he was beginning to stutter now, and Jinki felt the tension in the air around them worsen by the second. In part that was the heaviness of the conversation slowly bearing down on them, and on the other it was Taemin’s crumbling defence, which was painful to witness in itself. Jinki knew that beneath all of Taemin’s layers, somewhere deep down, was a vulnerability unlike one he’d seen in anyone before. He wasn’t even sure he’d seen the full extent of it yet, but he’d caught a glimpse when they had been younger, when Taemin had struggled more than he did nowadays. "I didn't want to bother anyone."

"You didn't really have to throw up, did you?" Jinki said. "Come," he said, while he finally stepped through to the living room now he thought he'd severely entangled Taemin in his own little mess for his escape from it to have become highly unlikely. It wasn't like Jinki had wanted to do this, and it certainly wasn't like he wanted any of this to be true. He frankly couldn't bear to think about it, but he couldn't let it go on either, certainly not like it had done, with Taemin all alone.

Taemin hesitated, then followed him through to the living room, where Jinki pointed at a chair and ordered him to sit. Taemin quickly stepped over to the chair and sat down on it, legs together, hands nervously in his lap, head down so he wouldn't have to look Jinki straight in the eyes. His mind was probably spinning to come up with a web of lies to bury the truth in, but Jinki had had enough. No more now. Unfortunately it was going to hurt the both of them to do this. It was a good thing he'd decided against anyone else being here while he did this. It was better this way, because Taemin was going to find it hard enough as it was, but at least Jinki was damn sure he was going to be here for Taemin through the whole of it. Not that he thought the other members wouldn't feel quite the same, but it was a burden Jinki wasn't sure they were ready yet to carry. Besides, perhaps Taemin would be able to tell them himself. Sooner, hopefully, rather than later. And if not, then Jinki would, because they were all going to have to keep an eye on Taemin, unless he began to admit, very soon, that he had a very serious problem.

"I don't really know what you're talking about," Taemin muttered quietly, which was something he'd tried before. It had even worked before, but Taemin was going to find none of his tricks to work from today onward. Jinki wouldn't let him do that to himself again. He felt bad enough that he'd believed Taemin all this time. Believed him enough, at any rate, to let it slip another day, another week. Because it wasn’t really Taemin he was believing when he believed those lies. Taemin wasn’t a liar by heart. And Jinki was pretty sure, given the option, that Taemin would choose not to feel compelled to lie.

"You made yourself sick," Jinki stated. "There's no reason to deny that, because I know that's what you did."

"I didn—"

"Now don't make hyung angry," he replied, before Taemin could so much as try to finish that sentence. Taemin's eyes were on him, blinked in something like panic, then darted off to look at something else in the room. Good. He was afraid. That meant Jinki was finally trapping him, forcing all those lies he'd told the past few weeks to come shattering down. It was about time Jinki found out the extent of this mess, though he was terrified just how bad it was. He'd seen Taemin... whenever Taemin could pick his own clothes and was wearing nothing but jumpers and oversized shirts. He had seen Taemin's arms — no more than flesh over bones, really — and his thin legs. He had honestly no clue how Taemin still got around to doing everything required of him. But then again... he'd begun to faint, hadn't he? It was becoming a more and more common occurrence, to the point where some of them barely still jumped from it at all, whenever Taemin would hurry to the floor and lean his head forward in an attempt to stay conscious. And that wasn't right. Why had it taken him this long to realise that Taemin had a problem? "You don't talk to hyung like that, do you understand?

"Sorry," Taemin said.

"I'll try again. You made yourself sick.  _ Didn't you, Taemin? _ " Perhaps he hadn't meant for the words to come out quite so strongly, but at least that meant they had become an undeniable  _ thing _ that Taemin couldn't simply shrug off, or duck beneath. Suddenly he was faced with them, straight on, and Taemin was pulling his legs up to sit deeper in his chair, to hide in a way that his lies no longer could help him with.

"Yes," Taemin said, voice so small it was barely audible. Jinki felt something stab him straight through his chest, because he'd so desperately still held on to the belief that perhaps, just  _ maybe _ , he was wrong, and Taemin was about to tell him exactly how he was wrong, and give him a sensible story that actually made sense somehow, which could explain everything that had happened. Instead Jinki had gotten what he'd been trying to get out of Taemin for weeks now; a confession. A brave one at that, as Jinki knew damn well that this wasn’t easy for Taemin, but he’d tell him that — probably a hundred times over — later.

"Why did you make yourself throw up?"

Taemin shrugged, pointedly looking in another direction to avoid having to make eye contact with Jinki, who was staring at Taemin, observing every little detail of his physique. Because if Taemin was about to lie again, he'd catch him this time. It was now or never. He was done letting it slip, letting Taemin get away with it. It just made everything worse, so much worse, and Jinki wouldn't let it get any worse than this. Not if he could help it.

"Taemin,  _ why _ did you do that?" Jinki could put the words in his mouth. He could ask way simpler questions, about whether Taemin liked the way he looked, about whether he felt generally happy or not at all, but that was too easy, and it wasn't going to help him get to the real answer. So he asked this instead, even if it meant having to watch Taemin's bottom lip tremble, while his arms closed in more firmly across his legs, so small, so fragile. He might disappear entirely if Jinki didn't catch him soon. No way he'd let that happen. No way at all. Jinki would go straight down with him if he’d start to fall, and somehow he’d lift him back up.

"I dunno..."

"You have to answer me, Taemin," Jinki said. "Or we're going to be here a long time."

"Fine, I don't care," Taemin retorted, like a stroppy child. It was a quality Jinki didn’t expect Taemin to ever lose, no matter the years that had passed since he’d been a young teenager and being a stroppy child had still made sense.

Jinki let out a sigh, looking at the ground a moment, before raising his gaze back up to look at Taemin, who now even looked like a stroppy teenager trying to escape trouble that had already found him. It had found him months ago, hadn't it? Jinki had just been slow. After this he would be sure never to trust Taemin again, not with himself, at any rate. "Taemin," he said, purposely not using a nickname to soften the blow. He knew what worked, because he knew what got through those thick walls Taemin put up around him. If Jinki tried the soft way, which he had tried a hundred times over the past few weeks, Taemin would just find a way to wiggle free and get away with it all. He'd find a way to cover the truth, then he'd find a way to get away with sharing the absolute minimum required, and then Jinki still wouldn't know anything, while all he'd given and received was false comfort. He was so very  _ done _ with it all. "If you are not honest with me right now, I'm going to get very upset with you." Somehow Taemin acting the stroppy child warranted Jinki treating him as one. It was something Jinki knew Taemin liked, because he understood this treatment, he knew how to react to it.

Taemin stayed quiet. He just pushed himself further back into his chair and fiddled with one of the strings of his jumper, which he had pulled on over his school uniform, probably right after leaving school. That was another habit he'd picked up, probably because he looked like a skeleton underneath it and he didn't want anyone to see when he got home.

"I swear Taemin, you're going to be in a lot of trouble if you don’t start talking to me."

Taemin shrugged again, which was all it took for Jinki to point his finger in Taemin's direction. The shrug, after all, was Taemin’s way of saying he  _ was _ having the conversation this way. Jinki knew, from experience, that if Taemin didn’t like the course of a conversation, he would simply fall silent and motionless. A shrug was good, even if it meant Jinki had to continue his act until Taemin would give in.

"You're walking a thin line here," he said, firmly. "It's very ungrateful of you not to tell hyung what's going on when hyung is trying to help." It wasn't quite the truth, but it was a different version of the truth that Taemin might need right now to actually break down a little. Jinki needed him to break down, because the facades that Taemin had put up worked so well and were so plentiful that Jinki wouldn't even know if he'd gotten to the bottom of this or not, unless he forced his way in. He didn't want to, but there were things he wanted even less. Therefore it was quite easy, doing this, in comparison to the worrying, and the wondering. This was rather simple, even if Taemin looked so fragile in that huge chair, and Jinki wanted nothing more than to tell him it'd all be fine. Later — after — he would. But first he had to get to Taemin, because at this moment he was still miles away. "You're going to be honest with hyung, do you understand?"

First Taemin threatened to shrug again, but then he nodded, though he turned his face even further away now, probably hoping Jinki would no longer be able to see his expression and the way his eyes were getting moist. Well, he did see, and no matter that it broke his heart, he felt relieved to see it, because it meant Taemin was finally letting some of it go, even if he was still desperately trying to hide behind his false safety. He no longer could, because Jinki  _ refused _ to let him go down that route.

"Why did you do it?" Jinki asked again. "Why did you make yourself sick."

Taemin didn't say anything, but he didn't shrug either. Instead the beginnings of a frustrated frown began to etch themselves into his brow. He didn't try to simply cast the question aside like he'd been doing before, but he wasn't able to answer it either. That was alright, because Jinki couldn't expect him to go from not talking at all to telling Jinki everything from one moment to the next. They might not even get all too far today, but Jinki wanted to make sure that however far they did get was based on  _ truths _ and  _ trying _ .

He waited another moment, until it became clear that Taemin really wouldn't answer the question as it stood now. Not without further pressing, anyway. "Alright, let's try this a little differently, shall we?" Jinki's voice was a little more forgiving now, but if Taemin thought he was about to find a way out, he was going to be desperately mistaken. "What did you feel this afternoon that made you do it?"

"I felt sick," Taemin replied, and he sounded genuine enough for Jinki not to immediately tell him to stop trying to use the same lie again and again. If feeling sick had been all there'd been to it, he probably would've asked one of them to come with him to the bathroom, and he would probably have been worried. He might not have wanted to go to school afterwards, afraid he'd feel sick again. None of that had happened, but perhaps Taemin wasn't quite talking about that kind of sick. Jinki would give him the benefit of the doubt, because he wanted to believe that Taemin wanted help, even if he was trying everything in his power to deny himself it.

"Sick?" Jinki asked, as it was as open a question as he could manage in return. Taemin was silent again, but he was thinking about it. Even if it led nowhere, Jinki could at least take some reassurance in knowing he'd made Taemin want to answer, even if that was step one of a hundred. At this point it wasn't like there was much time left to lose. He'd let it get too far. He was going to have to find out just how far, but he would let Taemin hide in his jumper for a little while longer, while he tried to ask him a few more questions.

"Yes," he replied. "My head...." he began, but then the rest of his sentence died down. "I dunno." Jinki had to force the sigh back down that had threatened to escape. No matter that this was frustrating as hell, it was hardly fair to let his own emotions get the better of him when he was trying to help Taemin, and this probably felt a whole lot worse for Taemin than it felt for him, even though that was hard to imagine at the moment, as he watched Taemin sitting across from him, looking far too small, and far too breakable, and realising that — in many ways — Jinki was going to have to make sure he got back up onto his feet, even if he had absolutely no idea how to do that, because he'd never had to do anything like it before, and Taemin wasn't exactly simple. All of them knew that, in their own ways.

"You felt sick in your head?" Jinki asked after a moment, when the worst of his frustration had faded again. He had to give Taemin time, even if it felt like there was no time left to give.

"I dunno," Taemin said again and although the words were accompanied by a shrug, it was pretty clear he didn't mean to make it sound as dismissive as it did. It was just hurting him, Jinki knew, but that wasn't an excuse to keep walking away. Unfortunately for the both of them, they were going to have to face this head on, even if that was kind of really terrifying.

"Can you try to explain? If you'd have to give it words, what would you say?"

"Ehm..." Taemin began, the noise coming out so quietly that Taemin's voice threatened to break after. Jinki didn't want it to, because he had no idea what he'd do if Taemin would start crying, though at the same time he was pretty sure Taemin  _ should  _ be sobbing, if he was ever to recover from this. Now that he thought about it, he'd rarely seen Taemin cry at all. And some things had happened that should really have made that sort of impact on him. Taemin just... endured quietly, and seemed to lock it all up somewhere. Jinki had no idea how he'd fix this, but somehow he was going to have to, because he'd promised all of them he'd keep them safe.

"Can you try for hyung?" Jinki asked. "Any words that come to mind are okay even if it doesn't make sense."

"Like... like..." Taemin began, but then he seemed to fail to grasp hold of anything tangible. His shoulders dropped a little and he seemed disappointed.

"It's okay," Jinki said. "Try again." He had to be encouraging. Strict, but encouraging. And then he probably needed to be many other things too, but he'd only know that later. First things first, he had to get something more from Taemin than he'd just been given, because it wouldn't be enough. Unfortunately Taemin was going to have to confront it.

Taemin's eyes quickly darted to look at him and Jinki spotted resentment, but then his eyes moved on again and Taemin was staring at his own knees, while seemingly lost in thoughts. Jinki had no idea whether he was thinking at all, or whether he was simply staring. He wondered just how much time he should give Taemin, before asking him again, but he supposed he had to trust Taemin, even if just a little. Not too much, though.

"It just felt wrong," Taemin said. "That's all, I don't know."

"It's okay not to know exactly," Jinki said again, because it seemed like Taemin needed to hear that. Why else was he beating himself up about this? Well, he was probably angry at having been found out, but then he shouldn't have been so fucking good at doing it, because... how the fuck had he lost  _ that _ much weight, so fast?! That was bound to raise questions. It was stupid it had taken Jinki this long. It really shouldn't. But alright, he'd try to accept that and move on, swearing never to make the same mistake again.

"Well," Taemin then began, much to Jinki's surprise. He immediately looked up at Taemin, observing how he was grabbing hold of his feet, like it was some sort of comfort. It made him look even younger than he was. "It's like there's someone telling me that it's not alright."

"Like what's not alright?" Of course Jinki knew. He could easily fill in where Taemin had been going with that sentence, but that wasn't the point.

"I dunno."

Alright, he wasn't ready yet to admit that. Jinki could accept that, for now. But he was going to keep trying all the same. One day soon Taemin was going to have to say the words. He could pick which ones he was able to use, but he was going to have to say them all the same.

"I think you know, but you don't want to say it. Is that right?" Jinki asked.

Taemin seemed to panic a moment, then quickly shook his head, before going back on that again and biting his lower lip instead, shrugging. A confession, sort of, but it wasn't good enough. Jinki already knew what was going on. That wasn't why they were here. He just needed Taemin to know it too, but it seemed like Taemin was trying his absolute best to keep running from the truth, whatever it took. Jinki supposed that made sense, because Taemin was being asked to give up a piece of control he thought he needed in order to be okay. He was wrong on that, of course, but that wouldn’t make it feel any less scary to Taemin, who believed it wholeheartedly.

"Yeah," Taemin said after another long moment of silence. Jinki felt his heart beat a little faster, as he hadn't expected Taemin to still say anything at all. It was something, even if it was little. In a way it was a lot too. That single confession was backed by a kind of courage Jinki wasn’t sure he’d have felt himself if he’d been in Taemin’s position.

"When did you start having these thoughts, Taeminie," Jinki said. He wasn't sure whether he could pinpoint the answer to that question. He wasn't exactly certain when this had all begun, but he knew it was some time ago. Too long ago. It might have been going on long before Jinki had even had his first suspicions, however.

"I found—" Taemin began, but then his teeth sunk back down into his lower lip and he refused to continue. There was all this stuff stuck in his mind and when he tried to get it out, it seemed to freeze in place. Jinki was certain it was going to take a whole lot more than a single conversation to get to the bottom of this.

"You found...?" Jinki asked when it became clear Taemin wasn't going to continue without being prompted a second time.

"No, nothing," Taemin then said, which was a step back from where they'd been before. Jinki felt renewed frustration, but he tried to suppress it. It wasn't fair to let it out on Taemin when he was trying. He'd save it for when he needed it, but even then he'd be careful, because the very last thing he wanted was for Taemin to run away from him, not to trust him anymore, to think of Jinki as someone he needed to hide this all from, more than anyone else.

"Can you tell me what you think of yourself, Taeminie?" Jinki asked, though that was perhaps the hardest question he'd ever asked Taemin. And that was saying something, as he'd been the one to sit Taemin down before debut and ask him whether he was — ten out of ten — sure that he wanted to do this with his life, right then and there. But this was, somehow, far more difficult, because back then Taemin had still been very definitely one person and right now Jinki wasn't so sure anymore whether that was the case. And all of it might mean that they'd come to the wrong conclusion all those years ago, when he'd still had a chance to prevent all this from getting to Taemin in the wrong ways, too early for him to really know how to deal with any of it.

"I don't... know..." Taemin said, but the last word came out as an afterthought, like he'd really meant to say something else instead. Jinki waited a moment, like he had done all this time, and sure enough Taemin's lips parted again and then, after some time, he found the nerve to speak. "I'm worried I'm not working hard enough. You're all getting further ahead of me."

"You think so?" Jinki asked, even though his insides were screaming for him to tell Taemin that was bullshit. He wanted to shake Taemin through and bring him back to reality, but that wasn't going to work. Taemin had to see this stuff for himself. That was the only sure way to get him to come to terms with all this.

"Yes, I know so," Taemin said. Jinki hesitated a moment, then did let out a sigh. Taemin quickly glanced over at him, anxiously checking what was going on.

"I disagree," Jinki said.

"No, you don't," Taemin retorted, so easily and quickly that there couldn't have been a moment's hesitation in his mind. "You don't have to pretend."

"Taemin, how dare you suggest I'm lying?" Jinki said, a little more forceful than he'd intended to. But it hurt to be not believed when he'd been so very fucking honest that it had nearly hurt him to say the words. Of course he disagreed. Taemin was learning so fast and so much. He was absolutely incredible, always had been, and getting a little more amazing by the day. Jinki had rarely seen anyone work harder, and never seen someone as young as Taemin work as hard as he had. Jinki frankly had no idea where he got the motivation from, especially considering he didn't fucking eat. Oh god. Why would Taemin do this to himself?! Didn't he realise he needed the energy now more than ever, precisely so he could keep going forward, keep progressing, outdo them all one day?!

"Sorry," Taemin said after a moment. "I just think you're lying."

"Well, I'm not," Jinki said, a little bitterly. "The least you can do is try to believe me. Are you trying?"

Taemin hesitated a moment, then shrugged.

"That's bad, Taemin."

"Sorry..." At least he meant his sorrys when they came, but they didn't begin to convey the half of what was truly going on here, and Jinki worried that they weren't going to be enough to actually change anything. Maybe he was doing this wrong. Maybe he should have been harsher, or maybe he shouldn't have given Taemin the option to answer him or not. Maybe he should have demanded it. Or maybe he should have just said he knew what was going on and explained the whole thing so Taemin wouldn't have to do it now. Maybe he should have just told Taemin that he understood that Taemin didn't like the way he looked, and was trying to change it. That perhaps he had a hard time controlling the things around him that seemed to matter, so he controlled the one thing he thought he could. But no, he wasn't going to take those explanations away from Taemin, when one day he was going to need to express them himself, of his own, to truly confront what was going on. Jinki couldn't do that for him, no matter how he might want to. It'd just be a loss on Taemin's part if he'd try.

"Now, do better next time, alright?" Jinki said. "When hyung gives you a compliment, you should appreciate it." But Jinki supposed that was hard when Taemin genuinely believed none of it to be true. For some inexplicable reason Taemin had got it into his head that he was — what? — nothing special? That was ridiculous. It was laughable, so ridiculous. Not that he felt a hint of humour at any of it.

"Alright," Taemin said, more resentment in his voice. That was alright. Jinki didn't expect any of this to be easy, nor did he really expect Taemin not to get angry at him. In fact, it was a surprise that he hadn’t yet. He was pretty sure that once things really began to hurt, Taemin wouldn't be able to control himself half this well. Jinki wasn't looking forward to it, but if — when — it'd come, he'd be there.

"I'm going to make us something to eat, and you're going to eat it. Do you understand?" Jinki said. "That means you'll eat everything on your plate, no matter how long it takes you. I'll sit with you."

A visible tremble shot through Taemin's body and his eyes were suddenly on Jinki, full sharp, full panic. Here we go, Jinki thought, because this was exactly the moment he'd dreaded. "What?" Taemin asked, like someone had just asked him something so utterly impossible that he was certain he must have misunderstood. Jinki waited a moment, but the panic in Taemin's eyes seemed to only intensify.

"I said I was going to make us something to eat and you were going to eat it," Jinki said. It was difficult not to let any sort of force slip into his voice, but he was pretty sure that would just make Taemin feel misunderstood. It wasn't like Jinki wasn't aware how hard this must be. He couldn't really imagine it, but he could reason that it wasn't exactly easy, or else Taemin would've been eating all this time. Desperate hunger had certainly not caused him to eat, and Jinki was not expecting to magically be the reason instead. "And after you're done, you're going to stay where I can see you. Do you understand?"

"Why?" Taemin asked. Jinki really felt Taemin probably wouldn't want this spelled out for him, but he'd asked for it, so Jinki would tell him.

"Because you need to eat an actual substantial amount of food, and I know that if I let you walk off afterwards you’re going to throw up again, so I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen. This is the nice way to do this, Taemin. You don't want to know what the nasty way is." Jinki didn't really want to know either, because he frankly had no idea. He was already pushing himself to the limits, but he supposed that if Taemin continued not to listen to any of this, he would be forced to take harsher methods. He just hoped to god that he'd be able to help Taemin — that all of them would together manage — because otherwise they'd have to call in help from elsewhere and that was going to be so much harder to bear. But depending on how serious Taemin's issue really was, it might end up being necessary. He was a skeleton already as it was. There was hardly anything left of Taemin to risk on the hope they'd be able to help him in time. The moment it turned out that all they were trying wasn't working, Jinki was going to find another means, even if Taemin would beg him not to. He just hoped one day Taemin would be able to understand why he did what he did, and he also desperately hoped he'd actually make the right choices. What on earth did he actually know? Nothing really. A few searches on the internet hadn't really cleared up anything. And so it wasn't like he knew anything, really. It felt like he didn’t. He didn't understand what Taemin was going through, or how to solve it, but he was going to have to try all the same, give it his all and make Taemin believe he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe then Taemin would learn to trust him enough. Shit, this was going to be near impossible, wasn't it?

Taemin was curling in on himself, hiding his face against his knees, and for a moment Jinki thought he might start crying, but that didn't happen. No, unfortunately he just sat there in silence, probably feeling wronged by the world and wondering why it had to be so difficult all the time. Jinki got up, gently placed his hand on Taemin's shoulder and squeezed it. His eyes fell shut then, because what he felt beneath the thick, deceiving material of Taemin's jumper, was next to nothing. Barely anything to take hold of at all. And going by the small wince that left Taemin's lips, even the soft squeeze had been firm enough to hurt him. Jinki tried not to panic, as he stroked his hand through Taemin's hair instead, giving him a different kind of comfort. "Come to the kitchen," he said.

"I don't want to," Taemin retorted. There was pain in his voice, but Jinki couldn't let it win, because he owed Taemin his strength.

"I don't care," he replied. "Come to the kitchen. Hyung is telling you to."

Taemin angrily stomped one of his feet into the pillow of the chair, before he pushed himself out of it and stepped towards the kitchen without giving Jinki so much as a look. He was hiding again, but Jinki didn't tell him off for it. This was hard enough as it was, and he understood he couldn't ask the impossible. That'd just confirm Taemin's thoughts that he really couldn't do what was expected of him. Jinki was determined to prove him quite the opposite, so he was going to make damn sure to tell Taemin to do the things Jinki  _ knew  _ he was strong enough to do. Like fighting this stupid voice in his head that was telling him he wasn't good enough, wasn't pretty enough, wasn't working hard enough.

"Sit," Jinki said, nodding towards one of the kitchen chairs, when Taemin seemed unsure what to do. "Tell me about school." This was going to be hard enough as it was without extending their previous conversation, so he would wind it down for now, while he made something he was certain Taemin actually enjoyed eating. There was no point making this harder than it had to be. “Did anything interesting happen?” he asked, while he grabbed for one of the pans. Like this it seemed a scene that could’ve taken place in almost any other day, except — of course — they both knew it was far more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos and comments are always appreciated! ♥ Have a nice day!


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